Last year, I killed boredom everyday on the morning train by reading. Good books and bad books. 'Cause I have to read in order to know and judge yea. These are some of my favourites, which brought my emotions up and down like a roller-coaster in just 40 minutes. Good enough to keep me awake for the rest of the day.
This has got to be my number one. Dandy In The UnderWorld: An Unauthorised Autobiography by Sebastian Horsley.
(I believe this photo is photoshopped. He shouldn't be good-looking at all.)
I couldn't help but want to share some of the nuttiest moments of this book with my friends, whom many say it's too dark and depressing. But I'm glad there are a few who appreciated and shared my laughter. Honestly it has got to be the funniest book I've read. This is my kind of humour-- dark. It's just crazy! He is so damn witty and always manage to turn something simple into his own pessimistic, narcisstic view. Instead of being disgusted by his contents, I can't help but secretly love his language skill. He is one good example of someone living in his own world, and absolutely enjoying it. May it be wearing his Ma's bright red lipstick and eyeliner for his idol's concert, strutting down the street in his metallic pink suit or visiting all prostitutes (high-class hostess and low-class whores) within his proximity. He does everything he likes, the world revolves around him anyway.
Sebastian Horsley is a dandy and artist manqué who was briefly famous a few years ago for getting himself crucified in the Philippines. “I’ve suffered for my art,” he forewarns us, “now it’s your turn.” A sexual and intellectual pessimist who lives “poised between Savile Row and Death Row”, or, more prosaically, between narcissism and boredom, he isn’t easy to comprehend. Maybe it has to do with seeing too much too young.
Certainly his upbringing was unorthodox. His mother tried to abort him but failed. “Had she known I would turn out like this she would have taken cyanide.” He was born in 1962, in Hull, “so appalled I couldn’t talk for two years”. The Horsleys were proprietors of the vast Northern Foods empire, and lived in a sprawling Yorkshire fortress. His father was “a drunk and a cripple”, his mother drunk and manic-depressive. She tried driving to the off-licence on a motorised lawn mower when her car keys were confiscated, and when her father died she ate his ashes sprinkled on her porridge. A family photo from little Sebastian’s early years shows his mother “on the floor face down in a pool of her own vomit. On the sofa sits Gogo [his granny], her wig awry, her lipstick skid-marked across her face. Next to her sits Father, his drink in one hand and his cock in the other. Home sweet home”.
Years later, his mother visited him in a clinic where he lay drying out from multiple class-A drug addiction. She sat by his side. “Have I failed you as a mother, Sylvester?” “It’s Sebastian, mother.” That one’s too good to be true, surely, as indeed may much of the book be. But the upside to this horrendous life, and Horsley’s preposterous defensive dandyism, is the humour. These memoirs offer the reader a consistently hilarious season in hell, even if some of the best jokes are stolen, unacknowledged, from sources as diverse as Dr Johnson and Sharon Stone. “I became a vegetarian not because I loved animals but because I hated plants.” “Artists are easy to get on with – if you’re fond of children.” And I shan’t forget his description of Will Self’s face resembling “a bag of genitals” in a hurry.
This is just a short introduction. Trust me, there are darker stages in his life. So unbelievable that I asked myself umpteen times "Is this really his biography?", halfway through the book. If you want a concise summary, I would say Hilarious.
The second book I want to introduce may need no introduction because it's made even more popular after the movie hit by Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson. Oh my god, did I make the book famous? Since the movie only came out after I finished reading. =) There's no need to guess, it's Marley & Me by John Grogan, the #1 New York Times bestseller.
Well I guess anything in America that has got to do with man's best friends will become a smash- hit. They just love their doggies too much, don't they? The story is simple and short but it's heart-warming, especially when you know it's based on a true story. There's no harm in reading another book on an adorable pup. Not just about how it grew up, but how it grew into an inseparable part of the family.
Another dog-book. The title attracted me so much, I had to pick it up. It's Okay to Miss the Bed on the First Jump by John O' Hurley.
So what are the lessons learnt from dogs?
1. Precious gifts come in small packages.
2. When a dog barks-- Listen.
We don't often do that, do we? Always wanting to be heard but not listening.
3. It's okay to miss the bed on the first jump.
Life is never a bed of roses! We must perservere!
4. A cold can of meat is still a feast.
So now, don't be picky and start to appreciate what we already have.
5. Every 15 minutes is a brand new day.
Forgive and forget, it's easier that way. Don't dwell on the bad, don't get complacent on the good.
6. Own your own fur.
7. Never misses a nap.
Haha for the workaholics out there.
8. You are only the size you think you are.
Don't let anyone nasty bring us down, our opinions weigh more.
9. If you are happy and you know it wag your tail.
Happiness is contagious. Spread it.
10. Everyday is a stretch.
11. If someone stops petting you, move on.
Yeah this is very very importantly. Move on! It hits the nail on its head if we put it in the relationship context. So wake up already if you are still love sick.
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